Fla. man with alleged ties to Tsarnaev killed during FBI questioning
A man shot and killed during FBI questioning in Orlando, Fla. allegedly had ties to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the dead suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, sources said Wednesday.
The FBI's field office in Tampa released a statement saying that it was "responding to a shooting incident involving an FBI special agent" in Orlando.
"The agent encountered the suspect while conducting official duties," the statement said. "The suspect is deceased. We do not have any further details at this time."
The victim, identified as Ibragim Todashev, allegedly became violent during an interview with the FBI and was shot after attacking the agent.
Police are interviewing a number of people who may have had ties to the Tsarnaev brothers to determine how and when they became radicalized.
A friend of Todashev told local TV station Central Florida News 13 that Todashev, 26, was a member of the Chechen community and knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
Khusen Taramov insisted that his friend was not involved in the bombings and that the FBI has been following him since the marathon attack last month.
"One day they started questioning us, next day after the bombing, not the bombing, after they found out the bombers were Chechnyans, and they started following us, watching us. They pretty much told the guy from his apartment and they start following us, watching us like every day," Taramov told the news station.
It's unclear if the shooting was directly related to the Boston bombing investigation but Taramov said that Todashev had a meeting scheduled with the FBI for Tuesday, which was supposed to be his last.
Todashev was planning to fly back to Chechnya that night with plane tickets purchased before the bombings. He said an FBI agent strongly advised Todashev not to leave the country.
"He canceled the tickets because, the FBI had been like, I don’t know, they’ve been pushing him, you know what I’m saying. They’ve been pushing him they say 'don’t leave, don’t leave' so he decided to stay. But we had a feeling, worst case scenario something like that was going to happen," Taramov told CF13.
